Chance Meetings
by englishtutor
Summary: In which a six-year-old Mary Morstan first arrives in England. How will she adjust to her new life? How can Sherlock, Greg, and John help her?
1. Part 1, Ch 1: The Boy in the Park

Note: My Mary Morstan is based upon ACD's books and is not related to BBC Mary. Accordingly, she is eight years younger than Sherlock, twelve years younger than John, and the daughter of an army captain stationed in India. Her mother died in 1987. This story takes place in 1989, when Sherlock is 14 years old.

000

She was the one bright spot in an otherwise dismally disappointing day.

He had been wandering about the streets of Westminster, trying his best not to return to school until it was absolutely necessary to prevent his parents finding out he'd absconded. He loved London—the energy and activity of this crossroads of the world were invigorating. But the people were so . . . boring. He was about to give in and head for the train station when he spotted the shining blond head. He watched her progress down Edgware Road with growing interest as she easily deceived every single adult on the street. He smiled.

"Five—no, six years old, but deceptively small for her age—and yet she's cleverer than this lot," Sherlock mused. It always pleased him to come across a native intelligence to match his own. In the fourteen years of his existence, this had been a rare occurrence.

One would think that the sight of a small child alone on the streets of a great city would attract attention and be a cause for concern. However, this particular child was cleverly positioning herself just behind a convenient adult as she made her way along, fooling everyone who might notice her into believing she was accompanied by a responsible person. But as Sherlock watched, she changed "escorts" as frequently as she needed to, when the person she was following turned off in a direction she didn't want to go. Fascinated, Sherlock crossed the busy street to get a closer look. As he did so, her current choice of "parent or guardian" paused before a market to chat with the proprietor, and the little urchin, lingering as if waiting for her mother, swiftly swiped an apple, which disappeared into her pocket. She then wandered off after another woman who was passing by, matching her steps to the stranger's as if she had been trotting behind this person for all of her short life. Sherlock, quite impressed and very curious, followed the halo of blond hair at a discreet distance.

This was just what he needed as an antidote to his frustrating day. In a fit of civic duty, he had played truant from school and had helpfully come to Scotland Yard to point out to them some vital information they had overlooked in the tragic death of young Carl Powers, a competitive swimmer who had drowned earlier that week. Sherlock had been quite specific in pointing out their oversights. But did anyone care? Did anyone even try to understand? Of course not. In their eyes, he was just a kid with a bee in his bonnet, trying to get attention for himself. The one policeman—the one with the French-sounding name-who even bothered to actually listen to Sherlock was a lowly Detective Sergeant; and he had unfortunately only just returned from an extended family leave and so was not assigned to any particular division at the moment. The man had tried to get Sherlock heard by his superiors, but it was too late; Sherlock had already by that point alienated everyone else at the Yard.

He pulled the card this policeman had given him out of his pocket. Lestrade, yes that was the name. "Next time you have anything to bring to the attention of the police, come to me first," Lestrade had kindly advised. "I'm afraid it's just not enough to be right. You have to present things in a certain way if you want to be heard. I can help you with that." Sherlock had scowled but had taken the man's card. Lestrade had seen him-really seen him- for his potential and for his worth, and that was more than most people did. Most people just told Sherlock to "piss off"—as all of Scotland Yard had done today.

It was enough to put him off the entire human race. But now here was this interesting, golden-haired child, striding down the street as if she owned it all, boldly biting her stolen apple, easily outsmarting everyone in sight. It was heartening. It gave him some hope for the future of humanity.

Sherlock trailed behind her as she came to the entrance to Speakers' Corner and darted into Hyde Park. Throwing herself down beneath a tree, she pulled her knees up against her chest and made herself as small and inconspicuous as possible. Of course! The child might be clever, but she was still a child, and a tiny one at that. All this trotting along at the speed of every passing adult must have been exhausting to the short-legged girl. Sherlock surmised she must also be thirsty. Approaching the urchin with the caution one uses when approaching a wild animal, he pulled a bottle of water from his rucksack and held it out as an offering.

Looking at him from behind the wild mane of ash-blond hair was the bluest and most ferocious pair of eyes he had ever seen. The determined set of her mouth and the stubborn tilt of her chin marked her as someone not to be trifled with. Sherlock was delighted. He crouched down to be closer to her eye-level, still offering the bottle. She looked down at it warily.

"I see you've not been in this country long," he began without preamble. "A week, perhaps? No, five days! You've lived in India, haven't you, most of your life? Your mother's been dead for a year—no make that two years. Your father is army intelligence-high rank, perhaps a captain? He sent you here to stay with relatives. You don't like them. Are they abusing you, or do you just object to western-style civilization as a general rule?"

As he spoke, she stared at him with ever-widening eyes, straightening her back and tensing her legs as if to spring. He was reminded of a lion—all wild mane and intelligent, piercing gaze, poised for an attack. "Do you know my father?" she ventured at last when he had run out of deductions.

"No. But I've been watching you for some time, and have drawn some conclusions from my observations of your appearance and behaviour."

She looked him over frankly, pursing her lips. "That's creepy," she told him at last.

He considered that for a moment. "Fair enough," he conceded. "But you needn't be afraid of me. I don't mean you any harm."

This earned him a scornful look. "I'm not afraid of anybody," this young lioness declared stoutly. He sincerely believed her.

"I just meant, it's safe to drink the water. You may observe that the seal hasn't been broken," he assured her, offering the bottle again.

She reached out and snatched the bottle from him and twisted off the lid. "Thanks," she said, and drank deeply, obviously very thirsty.

"So, was I right? You're staying in England with relatives?" Sherlock pursued.

Some of the ferocity left her eyes as she looked at him, apparently deeming him trustworthy. "Yeah," she nodded. "My dad's cousin and her family."

"Do they hurt you?" he asked softly, trying to determine her reason for exchanging an apparently comfortable, upper-middle-class home for the harsh streets of an unforgiving city.

She sighed and shook her head. "They don't hit me or anything. They just got so many rules. No climbing. No running. No sliding down the bannisters. Can't go anywhere but school and home. It's so boring."

He nodded solemnly. He could certainly relate. But at this child's age, he had been living in the country and had had a great deal of freedom and many things to explore and investigate. What sort of outlet did London living offer such an inquisitive young mind? Many, of course, but all required adult supervision. How tediously frustrating for a free-spirited six-year-old.

"You're used to having the run of whatever army base you lived on. Everyone would know you were the captain's daughter and look out for your safety. Here, no one knows you and you have no such freedom," Sherlock said understandingly. "I would feel the same in your place."

Hesitantly, she moved closer to him. "How'd you know all that stuff? About my mum and dad and India and all?"

He smiled. "Your clothes. Your tan. The way you hold yourself. Your longing look into the Indian restaurant you passed earlier."

She smiled back, dimples deepening. "You're different. You're . . . ." She struggled for the word.

"Brilliant? Fascinating? Amazing?" Sherlock suggested.

"Not boring," she concluded, giggling.

"Thank you," Sherlock said sincerely, understanding the compliment. And then he added without any sense of irony, "You should know, however, that not everyone you meet in this city will be as . . . kind . . . as I am."

The urchin raised her eyebrows. "What d'ya mean?"

Sherlock sighed. How to put this delicately? She was highly intelligent for her age, but she was, after all, only six years old. "Let us just say that, for your own benefit, I recommend that you return to your cousin's house before nightfall."

Drawing back, the girl scowled at him. He was losing her confidence now. "I don't need them. I don't need anybody!" she informed him sternly, waving a tiny right index finger in his face, fierce blue eyes blazing. "You go away! I don't need you, either!"

He backed off cautiously, holding up his hands. "Oh, I believe you! I can well picture you successfully foraging for food and finding ingenious places to sleep rough. But you must admit, most people here are far larger and stronger than you are; and no one here knows or cares who your father is. On the army bases, everyone looked out for you because of your parents. Here, you have no such protection."

She frowned but appeared to be considering his words carefully. "This is a big place," she conceded. "Could I go live on a military base?"

He shook his head. "The nearest one is a long way from here. You'd need money for a train. And once you arrived, they'd only send you back to your cousin's. You should consider that the adults in this country will be concerned with keeping you wherever your father sends you."

She looked sceptically at him, pondering. "You're larger than me, and you're not trying to hurt me," she observed.

This was a poser. He had no desire to squelch her natural self-confidence. And yet, she was in very real danger as long as she remained alone on the streets. He considered his answer carefully, but finally decided she deserved the truth, ugly though it was. It seemed to him that tender lies meant to avoid offending her childish sensibilities would be even uglier in the end.

"As I said, not everyone is as kind as I am. There are people in this city, unfortunately, who would hurt you without giving it a second thought. There are some who would sell you as a sex slave, and others who would use you for their own dubious pleasure. There are many criminals in this cold world who would think nothing of harming a child, I'm afraid."

She looked down at her hands, deep in thought. "I don't remember how to get back," she admitted at last. "I don't remember the address."

He smiled in relief. "That's all right. I have a . . . a friend who is a policeman. I'll take you to him, and he can help you get home safely. He can explain things to your cousin, so perhaps you won't get into too much trouble for running away," he added.

Taking her in a taxi back to Scotland Yard nearly wiped out his reserve of cash, but he felt it was worth it. There was something about this little girl—he could see potential in her, and he used the time he had with her to teach her the game of deductions in hopes that her natural cleverness would grow with practice. Lestrade gladly took charge of the child, and Sherlock used the credit card he'd stolen from Mycroft to get more cash from the nearest ATM. His brother wouldn't mind funding his train ride back to school, he was sure.

Mycroft. It was his brother who had taught him the important maxim: "caring is not an advantage." Yes, it would be tempting to try to keep tabs on that so very interesting child, to see what she became. But Sherlock had not even learned her name, and so it was quite easy to delete her from his mind palace. He did not need to clutter his brain with sentiments about lost children.

And so, when he met Mary Morstan again, twenty years later, he did not know he was not meeting her for the first time.


	2. Part 1, Ch 2: My Policeman

This chapter is the prequel, of sorts, to the chapter of "Family Dynamics" entitled "By Any Other Name".

000

Everything reminded him of Rose.

Everything he saw. Everything he heard. Everything he touched and even everything he smelled. Rose had been the centre of his life from the day she was born and placed in his arms six years ago until the day she died in his arms six days ago. The world was so much less now; the colours gone dull, the sounds deadened. And yet, Rose was everywhere he went. It was as if he saw life through her eyes now and experienced it through her. Everything reminded him of Rose.

Greg Lestrade looked down at the small and quite enchanting child which that strange boy called Sherlock had brought to him that afternoon, and he saw Rose. That was not unusual—every six-year-old blond child reminded him of his little girl. And he knew it was all in his head. This child's hair was a shade lighter than Rose's, and she was a bit shorter than Rose had been. Her facial features were quite different. But those eyes! Those blue, blue eyes, blazing with defiance—daring life to come on and do its worst! Those were so like his Rose's eyes, his little fighter. When Rose was diagnosed with brain cancer at age four, she was given a few months to live—she had lived for two years longer. She had been so strong, so tough for her tender years. He missed her spirit, missed her so much. . . .

"You won't tell me your name?" he coaxed this blue-eyed child. She tightened her lips and shook her head firmly. Sherlock had talked the child into going home, but in the interim, she had apparently changed her mind. At the very least, she was not going to make it easy on them. He offered, "My name's. . . ."

"Grown-ups think if they tell you their name, you have to tell 'em yours. That's stupid," she interrupted scornfully. "I want to go back to India. I'll tell you my name if you'll promise to send me back to India."

"I can't do that, darlin'. You know that, don't you?" Greg's heart went out to her. She was homesick and surrounded by strangers—all things familiar were far out of her reach. The few facts Sherlock had ferreted out of her he had shared with Greg, but she had not told the boy her name, either, and she could not remember her cousin's address.

Aware that he was guessing wildly, the Detective Sergeant continued, "Your father sent you here for your own good—you can get a good education here, and it'll be good for you have your cousin in your life, won't it, a woman to care for you? A girl needs a mum, doesn't she?"

(Rose had needed her mum, hadn't she? It was a regret Greg had felt so deeply all her short life. His wife had never wanted children, and then here was this beautiful child, and Greg tried to understand why a mother would reject her own baby. But he did his best to keep Rose from knowing that her mother didn't want her—when he was off work he did all the nappy changing and feeding and skinned-knee kissing, and tea parties and swings at the park and birthday treats. As Rose grew sicker, he took on most of her care, refusing to put her into hospice. His job suffered, then he took extended leave and didn't work at all. It was worth it—Rose had known she was loved. But she had still needed her mum, hadn't she?)

"My dad just doesn't want me," the child informed him frankly. "He sent me away 'cause I'm too much trouble. He said my mum went away 'cause I wore her out taking care of me. He hates me for that." Now she that she had got started, the words tumbled out, as if she'd been holding them in far too long. "And dad said my nanny ran away 'cause I'm so much trouble. And yesterday, my cousin said I'm a lot of bother and she wants to send me away, too."

He was speechless. How could a father be so cruel to his precious little girl? Greg would give anything (ANYTHING!) to have his daughter back. And here was a monster who casually sent his daughter away to uncaring strangers. The Detective Sergeant longed to fly to India himself and give this callous army captain a piece of his mind! And perhaps a well-placed fist, for emphasis!

"It's good that they tell me the truth. It's better than lying all the time. I get so tired of lies," the blue-eyed child continued candidly. "Yesterday, my cousin told me my mother is dead. Mum disappeared when I was little, but everyone just said she went away. It's better to know she's really dead, so I don't keep thinking she might come back one day."

It was all Greg could do to stop himself bundling the little urchin into his arms and running away with her—to take her home with him, to care for her as he'd cared for his Rose and to protect her from the coldness of the hard-hearted adults in her life. Why was the world such a cold, hard place, when all its children needed warmth and gentleness? But the law is the law. He must return the child to the place her legal guardian deemed best for her. Greg closed his eyes tightly and saw Rose, his Rose, in his mind, loving him. He opened them and saw this blue-eyed child who was not his to care for, and he loved her anyway.

Carefully, he said, "Sweetheart, if your dad or your cousin, or anyone, has hurt you, I want you to tell me so that I can go make them stop. I'm a policeman—it's my job to stop people from getting hurt. Okay?"

She sighed, a sigh beyond her years. "The boy in the park asked that, too, about my cousin or her family hurting me. They don't hurt me. My dad didn't either. They just don't want me. I don't want them, either!" she added emphatically. "I don't need them. I don't need anybody! If I was back in India, I could take care of myself!"

Greg smiled sadly. "Yeah, I bet you could at that! But I can't send you back, darlin'. You have to live here now, and I have to take you back to your cousin's house. And you mustn't try to run away again, okay? Because the streets aren't safe for a little lady like you, all alone."

"The boy in the park said that, too. He said big people would make me a slave and do stuff to me. He said crinimals don't mind hurting children."

"Hmm," Greg absorbed this information with mixed feelings. Sherlock had been very honest with the child. But perhaps honesty was best—she obviously detested being lied to, even lies meant to spare her feelings. "Well, he's right, I'm afraid. There are criminals who would think nothing of hurting you. That's why I need to take you home, where you'll be safe." Oh, but this felt like a lie, too! Would she be truly safe in such a home? Perhaps she would be physically safe, but the emotional damage was so great. Why wasn't it against the law to refuse to love a child? (Why couldn't he have influenced his wife to love their child?) Why did he have to stand helplessly by and allow such people to do psychological harm to helpless young girl?

A constable approached the bench where the two were sitting. "Here's the list of children reported missing today, sir. There's only one that matches her description." He handed Greg the file; yes, this was obviously the one.

"So your name is Elizabeth?" he smiled at the girl he'd always think of as the blue-eyed child.

She pouted sourly. "That's what my cousin calls me. I hate that name," she grumbled. "When she calls me that, I don't answer her. Then she yells and stuff. It's a problem."

Greg didn't know whether to laugh or cry at this confession. He stood up and held out a hand to the blue-eyed child. "Come on, we might as well face the music, darlin'." The cousin's name was MacIntire, and she and her husband lived near Hyde Park.

At the MacIntire's house, Greg noted that there were no hugs or expressions of relief at the prodigal's return. "Good Lord, Elizabeth! How could you worry us like that and bother this nice policeman!" the cousin scolded.

"It's no bother, really, Mrs MacIntire," Greg hastened to assure her. "She's quite a lovely little girl, worth taking any amount of trouble. She charmed everyone she met."

"Oh, you don't know what I'm up against, officer!" the aggrieved cousin confided. "She was raised wild in India, you know. Mother dead, father paid her no attention. She's used to doing whatever she wants. It's been a nightmare since she arrived here. She's turned my household on its head!"

"I imagine it's quite a change for her," he ventured, trying to smooth things over. "I mean, she must be homesick, and perhaps feels rather unwanted. . . ."

The cousin glared at him. "What are you, a psychologist? She's just spoiled, that's all. She needs a firm hand. That's why I'm sending her to my sister's in Kent next week. My sister and her husband live in the country and they have a half dozen kids of their own. They know what to do with an unruly child."

Greg hoped with all his heart that this was true and not the threat it sounded like! "Well, I . . . I wish you the best of luck, young lady," he said to the blue-eyed child. He could not bring himself to call her "Elizabeth".

Twenty years later, when Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade first met Mary Morstan, he looked into her eyes and thought she seemed familiar. But no, it couldn't be! Coincidences like that don't really happen, do they? He dismissed it as impossible and put it out of his mind.


	3. Part 1, Ch 3: Kind and Beautiful Eyes

She had lived in Old Alresford, Hampshire, for several months when she woke up one morning to a phenomenon she had never experienced before. The ground outside was white with snow, and the sun glinted blindingly from the crystalline coating on every tree branch and hedgerow. The world had turned into an enchanting fairy-land, and she rushed outside in her pyjamas and bare feet to touch it and smell it and experience it.

"Mary Elizabeth Morstan, you get back in this house before you catch your death!" her cousin shouted. Shivering, the six-year-old obligingly returned to the room she shared with her cousin's two daughters and dressed in the hand-me-downs they had given her, finishing with a raggedy coat. This cousin was less harsh than the one she had stayed with in London, but she was busy and distracted with her two daughters and four young sons, and there was not much money to go around. Mary felt the woman was doing her best, and the child actually enjoyed the freedom such neglect brought her—she could roam about the picturesque little village as she pleased and explore to her heart's content. It was lovely not to be bored! The occasional cuff on the ear and wearisome scoldings that her frequent disappearances earned her were well worth it.

It was Saturday, and it was beautiful, and Mary ran backwards down the street, watching the tracks she left with the joy of escaping into a new world. Everything looked so different. All the old, familiar sights were now worthy of a new investigation. It was a gift from heaven, sent to give her more new things to learn and explore.

After noting some big boys in a vacant lot throwing snowballs at one another, May decided to try her hand at that fascinating skill. Choosing a tree a little ways down the street, she formed her weapon, aimed carefully—and missed her target by a long ways! Stubbornly setting her little chin, she tried again and again until, at last, she thought she was getting the knack.

"You are the most, most, most, selfisisht. selfishest boy that ever!"

Mary heard the couple coming and looked down the street at them. The young woman, hatless, gloveless, wearing no overcoat, was weaving drunkenly and hurling abuse at the boy who was trying his best to stop her from planting her face in the pavement. The boy—young man, really—was muffled up in a warm hat and scarf and wool-lined anorak, and was holding a second coat in his free hand.

"Harry, just stop a mo and let me get this on you," he exclaimed in an exasperated voice. "You're going to freeze to death before I can get you home."

"As if you'd care! Detser . .deserter!" the young woman hissed furiously. "Runnin' a, a, away to the army! Goin' to be a b-b-b-bloody doctor! What about me? Eh? What about me?" Mary stood fascinated, frozen in place, as the couple reached the tree she was standing near and stopped.

"We'll talk about it at home, okay?" the young man said gently, trying to wrap the extra coat around the angry, shivering woman. She whipped it off with a violent gesture, catching Mary in the face with it and knocking her off balance. The child slipped on the icy pavement and sat down hard.

"Harry! Be careful!" the young man exclaimed. He let go of the drunken woman and dropped to his knees in the snow by Mary's side. "Hey, are you okay?"

Mary looked up into the kindest, most beautiful eyes she'd ever seen and was speechless. She nodded dumbly.

"Let's get you off the ground, then, shall we?" His nose and mouth were hidden by his scarf, but Mary could tell by his eyes that he was smiling at her. He picked her up and set her on her feet and gently brushed the snow off her raggedy coat. "You sure you're not hurt?" he asked, gently touching the stinging place on her cheek where the coat buttons had struck her, and the concern in his voice was heart-warming.

"I'm fine," she assured him. But she couldn't disguise a shiver.

"Hmm. I can't get my sister to wear this. Perhaps you'd like it," the young man suggested kindly. He helped her into the over-sized coat and buttoned it up. "There, how's that, then?"

Mary smiled at the stranger with the kind, beautiful eyes. "Thank you. It's wonderful," she said.

"Right! You take care of e'ry, ev'ry, every s-s-s-stray person but me!" the furious woman called Harry screeched, and stormed off, staggering.

The young man looked after his sister, but lingered by Mary's side. "I saw you throwing those snowballs. I like your persistence. Keep up that stubborn streak and you can do anything you like," he said, sounding as if he were trying to convince himself as well as the child. "You just keep trying and don't give up."

Mary was only six years old, but she knew he was wasn't talking about throwing snowballs. She nodded wisely. "You don't, either," she told him soberly. "You go be a doctor in the army and help people."

Again, his eyes smiled at her from beneath his warm hat. "I will! I'll be the best army doctor that ever was, just because you say so," he teased; but she knew he really would.

Twenty years went by, and Mary Morstan learned, through being passed about amongst indifferent and often abusive, sometimes violent relatives, and amongst indifferent, second-rate boarding schools, that people aren't permanent and were not to be trusted. But there was always, in the back of her consciousness, a vague, lingering memory of the kindness of strangers. A not-boring boy in a park who thought she was clever and who told her the truth. A sad-eyed policeman who said she was charming and who wanted to protect her. And a young man with kind, beautiful eyes who told her to never give up.

Mary chose to believe those three. And so she grew up to be clever and honest, charming and protective, kind and beautiful, and as stubborn as you please. And one day, she looked into a pair of kind and beautiful eyes, and found that she could trust someone after all.


	4. Part 2, Ch 1: Kind and Beautiful Eyes

**Please Note:** This chapter takes place immediately before the events of "Invictus". Mary is now 32 years old.

This is for the lovely sweetmarly, who requested an additional chapter or two to this story. Because I don't know when to stop, I give her three! I hope she does not regret this request!

My heartfelt thanks to the indispensable Wynsom and the incomparable Ennui Enigma for being my sounding boards. This may not be exactly what you wanted, my friends, but I did warn you about my unfortunate character flaw. . . .

000

She couldn't have said what it was that made her open her old foot locker that morning.

Nearly ready to leave for work, Mary had already said goodbye to John as he went to take a shower, and she was rummaging for shoes in her wardrobe when her hand grazed the old foot locker. She had stashed it in there when she had moved in to the flat eight years earlier and had never given it another thought. So much had happened since that day—she had met John, she had met Sherlock; she had discovered what had happened to her father. She had married the man of her dreams; she had acquired a new father-figure in Greg Lestrade and a new mother in Mrs. Hudson and a big brother/small child/best friend in Sherlock.

This old foot locker, filled with childhood memorabilia, had been relegated to a nearly forgotten, almost irrelevant past. Her new life was perfect and exciting and filled with love; her old life paled in significance, and she did not like to think about it.

But by some impulse, she lifted the lid and looked inside. On top lay her old coat, brown suede and wool-lined, which she had acquired, as a six-year-old, during her first winter in England. She pulled it out and held it up, smiling fondly at what had been one of her most cherished possessions. It had been absurdly huge on her at age six—the hem was frayed and stained from having dragged on the ground for several seasons. And it had kept her snuggly warm every winter for nearly ten years, much to the consternation of her many care-takers, although she had never really grown into it; she finally retired it when she was sixteen and on her own. Mary slipped her arms dreamily into the worn sleeves, well-creased from spending so many years rolled up, and was surprised to find the coat fitted well at last.

She had loved this old coat, as it had always reminded her of the stranger with the kind and beautiful eyes who had given it to her. He had told her to never give up, and she had clung to that mantra all of her life. When things got hard, and things frequently had, she found comfort in the memory of his smiling eyes and his assurance that if she persevered she could do anything. More than any other event, this singular chance meeting had served to keep her going until she had gained her independence, made herself a place in society, and then had at last met her Captain.

Taking the old garment off again, she folded it reverently and replaced it in her foot locker. She was going to be late for work. She needed to get moving. Shoving her feet hastily into her shoes, she rushed to the sitting room for her proper coat; but her mind was still on the events that had led to her acquisition of the old one. She had been so young—her memories of that day were dim and distant. Where had she been living then? What had she been doing out in the snow? What had prompted a total stranger to give her his coat with an offering of sage advice?

"Where was I the winter I was six? Hampshire?" she mused as she hastily stuffed keys and wallet and phone into pockets. "Yes, the Porter cousins, in Hampshire. What was the name of the village? Old Alresford; that's where I was staying. That was the first time I ever saw snow. And the young man stopped because . . . ." She froze before the door with her hand on the knob. "Oh! Because his sister had knocked me down in the snow. I remember I thought she was funny because she was drunk and she had a boy's name. . . ."

And suddenly Mary had to back into the sitting room and sit down hard on the sofa as realization hit her like a sledgehammer. "Oh, my lord! John grew up in Old Alresford!" she whispered, her hands over her mouth. "When I was six, he would have been . . . eighteen. Oh, good lord! It can't be. It can't be." She screwed her eyes tightly shut and rocked back and forth as she tried to bring up the ancient memory of the young man's face, but all she could remember were his eyes.

"He was all muffled up in hat and scarf. I never saw his face. OH!" A new revelation nearly knocked the breath out of her: from the time she was sixteen, she'd had dreams of a young man whose face she never saw clearly, but who made her feel safe and loved and special. 'Never give up,' he had always said in her dreams. 'Hold on and I'll find you one day.' When she met John, she had been sure the dreams had been of him. Now she could see that this was literally true. She sat lost in reverie, unable to move from the sofa.

"Mary, I thought you'd gone," John called from the bedroom, steamy-fresh from his shower. "You're going to be late, aren't you?"

Feeling distinctly light-headed, she rose to her feet as if sleep-walking and wandered in to him. She gazed at her husband with new eyes. "I think I need another kiss before I go," she told him wonderingly, as she slid her arms around his neck.

He smiled. "Well, if you insist," he said lightly, happy to oblige. He felt so warm and true and so incredibly real. Her heart swelled and overflowed with joy until she could hardly bear it.

"I almost despair of ever being able to tell you just how amazingly wonderful you really are," she murmured in his ear, and kissed him again.

He chuckled. "Well, if this is how you try to tell me, I strongly suggest you keep right on trying, as much as you like." He held her close and nuzzled her neck. "What brings this on, love?"

"I've just realized that I've loved you nearly all my life," she told him. "And that the idea of you kept me going till I met you, and helped to make me what I am."

"Mmm," he agreed. "I know I was looking for you all my life. Thank God I finally found you!" He held her face in gentle hands and looked into her eyes. "As long as we're being soppy, I'll tell you that you are truly more precious to me than anything else in the world."

There had not been much more talking accomplished after that, and Mary was well and truly late for work that morning. As she rode the tube to the clinic, she planned out how she would tell John about his old coat that evening at dinner over glasses of wine. How surprised he would be! She went to her office and saw patients and did paperwork and just couldn't wait until it was time to go home.

She had no inkling, even when the robber was shouting and holding his gun to her head, that she was now on her way to a very different and quite permanent home.


	5. Part 2, Ch 2: My Policeman

**Please note: **This chapter takes place immediately after the last chapter of "Captain of His Soul."

000

He sank into the chair behind his desk at New Scotland Yard that afternoon, feeling rather wrung out. Sherlock's incredible gift to John that week had been a catalyst for them all, it seemed. The detective had managed to dig up a great deal of Mary's past and had presented John with a box filled with mementos from her first six years of life in India. This had given the grieving husband the impetus to finally go through the rest of his and Mary's things from the flat they had shared, which had been stored away for the past year.

Greg had spent that morning with John in the storage unit, sorting through the contents of Mary's flat, which Mycroft had had moved there shortly after her funeral. Having recently moved from his tiny bedsit to a decently sized flat, Greg had been the grateful recipient of much of the Watson's old furniture, which had been carried away in a hired van. The rest of the stuff had been either designated for charity or loaded into Greg's car and taken to Baker Street for John to peruse in comfort at his leisure. The entire effort had been emotionally challenging to them both, to say the least. Greg had not really wanted to go to work at all, but there was something he needed to do.

Picking up the photo on his desk, Greg gently removed the picture of his little Rose from its frame. He replaced it with care into the left side of a new, double frame he had bought on his way to work. Then, taking an envelope from his briefcase, he selected a picture of Mary, taken on her wedding day, and placed it in the right side of the new frame. Setting it on his desk, he surveyed his handiwork with an affectionate smile. As they had rummaged through the storage unit, Greg had observed with regret that he had no pictures of Mary whatsoever, and John had immediately given him several.

"Rose. Mary." Greg read his pictures from left to right with sentimental satisfaction. "'There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember.'"* Mary had been like a daughter to him, and she had been in his life for six years, just as Rose had been. It seemed fitting that their pictures should now be joined on his desk for him to look at whenever he liked.

The D.I. wondered briefly if he ought to have left John alone in the Baker Street flat with those boxes of Mary's old things. Perhaps he should have stayed with his friend to give him support. But John had seemed to want his privacy, and Greg respected that. He'd check back with his old mate later this evening. Perhaps they'd go out and have a drink in Mary's memory.

His phone began to play "Helter Skelter", and he looked at it with concern. Sherlock always preferred to text. What could have prompted him to call?

"Yeah, what's up?" Greg answered.

"I need you to find a report of a missing person, a runaway child, from June of 1989, don't know the exact date," Sherlock began without preamble, rattling off information at light speed, almost without drawing breath. "Filed by Angus and Enid MacIntire of Hyde Park Street—the MacIntire woman was completely uncooperative and extremely unpleasant. She refused to tell me where the child was sent after her short stay with them, but she did complain that the policeman who returned her after she ran away was persistent in following up on the case. I'm hoping he might still be with the Yard after all these years and might be able to give me a lead. The missing child was six years old, blond hair, blue eyes, answered to the name of Elizabeth. . . ."

"No she didn't," Greg interrupted firmly, chuckling fondly. "She told me she hated that name and refused to answer to it. I remember the child quite well, and so should you, Sherlock. You're the one who found the little imp in Hyde Park, after all."

A moment of shocked silence. "_I_ did? _I _found her?" Sherlock's voice sounded shaken.

"You must remember this, Sherlock. It was the day you and I first met. You'd left school to come to Scotland Yard and rant about the Carl Powers boy, yeah? And then a few hours later, you came back with this runaway child you'd picked up at Speaker's Corner." What a momentous day that had been for Greg, and for Sherlock as well. Greg had been very impressed with the then teen-aged Sherlock's abilities and had encouraged the boy to contact him directly with any further insights that needed to be brought to the police. Convinced by the boy's manner that he was a sociopath, Greg had nevertheless felt Sherlock could, with encouragement, grow up into a first-rate detective. It was when the boy came back, however, with the blue-eyed runaway in his care that Greg realized Sherlock Holmes was not a sociopath at all, but in fact had a hidden but tender heart. All through the pre-John years of dealing with Sherlock, Greg had held onto that memory whenever he despaired of seeing any humanity in the mad detective.

"Are you sure?" Sherlock was now demanding sharply. "You're sure it was I who found her?"

"Of course, I'm sure. I'll never forget that day," Greg assured him. "It was my first day back at work after . . . after I lost my Rose. . . ." he trailed off, a burning in his chest making it suddenly difficult to breathe. "Oh, my god . . . ."

"I must have deleted it." Sherlock's voice through the phone sounded bleak and grieved, muttering desperately to himself. "Think! Think!"

Greg's mind was awhirl. What case was Sherlock working on today? Had the detective persisted in investigating Mary's past? He'd discovered the name of the relative into whose care her father had sent her when he put her on that plane to England. Mary had been six years old when her father had sent her away . . . . And it had been on that very day that Rose had died. Six days later, Greg had returned to work, and this unwanted, motherless urchin had run away from home. "I want to go back to India," the blue-eyed child had declared to him staunchly. "My dad just doesn't want me," the blue-eyed child had said.

"Sherlock," he spoke urgently into his phone. There was no answer; Sherlock was lost in his mind palace, searching for deleted memories. "Sherlock!" Greg shouted insistently. "This is Mary we're talking about, isn't it? The runaway child, that was Mary, wasn't it? Sherlock!"

"Of course, it was Mary," the detective snapped irritably. "Shut up, I'm trying to think!"

"Sherlock. The MacIntire woman was right—I did try to follow up on the case. Mary was sent to Old Alresford a few days after the incident. Old Alresford, Hampshire, Sherlock. You know, where John grew up."

This got Sherlock's attention at last. "Lestrade! Are you certain of this?" He demanded. Greg was firm that he was. "I have to go," Sherlock told the D.I. shortly, and hung up.

Greg sat in awed silence at his desk, staring at the pictures in front of him. Could the universe really be so incredible? This new knowledge was a gift beyond anything he might have imagined. How often had he wished he'd known Mary when she was small, so that he might have helped her?

_"__You ended up remarkably well-adjusted, considering your past_," he had told Mary once, admiringly. _"Many kids in your position end up with no sense of self-worth whatsoever, but you are one of the strongest, most-sufficient women I've ever met."_

She had smiled_. "I had some help on the way, you know," _she had confided._ "I met a policeman once, when I was small; everyone else in the world was telling me how much trouble I was, but this policeman took time to listen to me; didn't think I was trouble, just said I was charming. He wanted to protect me, and that made me think I must be worth protecting. I held onto to that idea the rest of my life." _She had smiled into his eyes then and added_, "You're very like_ _him, I think, my policeman."_

Such an intense interweaving of joy and sorrow rose up in Greg's heart that he could not separate the threads of his emotions. The two were as one, and he was overwhelmed.

Rising from his chair as if in a dream, Greg walked out of the building without a word to anyone and somehow or other made his way home. For the past year, he had made it his business to be strong and supportive of John and of Sherlock as they dealt with their profound loss. He had been there for them as they worked through their grief; but he had not in all that time truly acknowledged his own. His was the role of supportive friend.

But now, sitting in Mary's own armchair in his new flat, for the first time he allowed himself to truly feel his loss. For the first time since Mary had gone, he allowed himself to weep.

000

*Greg is quoting Ophelia from Shakespeare's "Hamlet". It is from her speech in which she mourns her father's death—a bit of a turn-about.


	6. Part 2, Ch 3: The Boy in the Park

Sherlock sat frozen in place at the table in the little café, stunned to immobility.

He had finally managed to determine where the six-year-old Mary had been sent when she had left India, only to discover that afternoon that she had been at the Hyde Park Street address for little more than a week. Frustrated by the MacIntire woman's refusal to help, he had placed his hope of following Mary's trail further in a chance remark the woman had made: the little girl had scandalized her new caretaker by running away from home and getting mixed up with Scotland Yard after being in the country only five or six days. Knowing there would be a report of the incident on file, he had stopped at the first handy place he'd come to and called on Lestrade for help in obtaining more information. And he'd got far more information than he'd ever bargained for.

He was nearly overcome by the shock of it. Apparently he had deleted his first meeting with Mary. Of course, he could not have known at the time how important she was destined to become in his life. And this chance meeting had happened on the same day he had first met Lestrade? Truly "there are more things in heaven and earth, Sherlock, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." *

But nothing deleted is ever truly unrecoverable. He delved deep into his subconscious, down into the discarded files; he started with the Carl Powers case, reviewing his interactions with NSY that fateful day and tried to follow the trail of events from there. But all that had happened between his leaving Scotland Yard and boarding the train back to school that day was a blank.

Perhaps being physically present in the area in which he'd encountered the young Mary would help. Lestrade had mentioned that Sherlock had found her at Speaker's Corner. Sherlock picked up his phone from the table where he had dropped it after cutting off his call to Lestrade and shoved it into his pocket. Stepping out onto the pavement, he looked down Connaught Street towards Edgware Road. It was not perhaps the most direct route, but he strongly felt it was the way that he must take.

On Edgware Road, he began to feel the inklings of memory returning. Had he first spotted little Mary here? His feet led him inexorably along and then stopped without his express consent in front of a particular market. Looking at the display of fruit by the front door, he felt an inexplicable delight. He stood a moment and gazed down at a bin of apples. An image formed in his mind's eye of a deceptively angelic-looking child, haloed with mussy blond hair, swiping an apple and hiding it, quick as a magic trick. Sherlock smiled, enchanted by the memory. Following his instinct on towards Hyde Park, he seemed to see the little urchin just ahead, cleverly avoiding the detection of every other person on the street.

Down Bayswater Road and through Cumberland Gate he went as if in a dream, and entered Speaker's Corner to look around. One particular tree stood out to him, and he reposed himself beneath it and steepled his hands against his lips to think.

A vision of ferocious blue eyes appeared to him; a miniature lioness declared stoutly, "I'm not afraid of anybody!" Yes, this could be no one else but a young Mary Morstan! And then he saw this precocious little Mary wave her tiny right index finger in his face and tell him to go away! Such joy at the memory rushed through him that he laughed aloud. Even then, Mary was bossing him with that gesture, which he'd never known her to use on anyone else but him.

Now the entire memory of that encounter returned to him intact. It was almost unbelievable. A coincidence? But the universe is never that lazy! He had been in London that day on a mission, and had met Lestrade, and had met Mary. And his life had never been the same.

Closing his eyes, he accessed another, more recent memory. Since the first time John had brought her to Baker Street, Sherlock had stored his every interaction with Mary and treasured them in his mind palace, just as he did with John himself. Now he replayed a conversation that had taken place nearly five years earlier.

_"__You needn't think you're entirely singular, Sherlock," _Mary had chided him affectionately once, when he was getting a bit too full of himself._ "When I was a child, I once met a boy in a park with your knack for deduction. He hadn't your education or experience yet, of course, but he was clever. Maybe even as clever as you."_

Sherlock had affected an insulted look_. "Knack?" he had grumbled. "I would hardly call my abilities a 'knack'." _She had laughed.

_"__This boy," _she told him, but almost talking to herself_, "he thought I was clever. I was so used to people telling me how difficult I was—a trouble-maker, a problem child. But that boy was more clever than any of them, and he thought I was clever, too. I held onto that all my life. It helped me to believe in myself when all the world tried to push me down. I owe that boy so much."_

"I owe you, too, Mary," Sherlock whispered gratefully to her memory. "So much."

000

"John!" Racing up the stairs to the flat, Sherlock called out, "John, you won't believe what I've discovered!" Skidding to a halt inside the open door to the sitting room, his exhilarated enthusiasm quickly died out. "John?"

His friend was sitting on the couch, an old foot locker open on the coffee table before him, staring down into a bundle of brown suede on his lap. His face was pale, his expression a remarkable one of mingled disbelief, sorrow, and a sombre joy.

"John? What is it?" Sherlock asked cautiously. He knew that John and Greg had been emptying the storage unit that day, and easily deduced that this foot locker was one of Mary's. Although he had spent a great deal of time in Mary's flat, Sherlock had never seen this little trunk before; and it seemed that neither had John.

Slowly John appeared to become conscious of his flatmate's presence. His head turned in slow motion towards Sherlock and their eyes met.

"This was my coat," John said simply, sounding dazed, as if he were talking in his sleep. He held the item up. It was, Sherlock could see, nearly thirty years old and quite worn and threadbare, the hem and sleeves particularly frayed and stained. It was certainly not anything Sherlock had seen John wear before.

"Why would Mary hide your coat in a foot locker?" Sherlock wondered.

"This was my coat when I was eighteen," John amended. "It was quite new when I gave it away. I'd bought it to wear to university, but it never fit right—far too snug. Tried to give it to Harry. . . ." His voice trailed off as if he had forgotten he was talking.

Lestrade had just told Sherlock that six-year-old Mary had been sent to Old Alresford, where John had grown up. "You gave it to charity and Mary ended up with it," the detective guessed, but knew this was wrong even as he said it.

"I gave it to a small child on the street. Five or six years old, she was; blond, blue-eyed. Blue lips, too, she was that cold. Throwing snowballs at a tree. Harry was drunk again—I'd gone out to find her and bring her home. Grabbed this coat to put on her—knew she'd gone out without anything warm on." John was rambling, staring into the past, lost in his memories, caressing the soft suede gently. "And there was this little girl, pitching snowballs—was rubbish at it, but wouldn't give up. Harry . . . she knocked the child down in the snow. I picked the girl up and . . . . and she was so cold. . . ." His voice broke. "I gave my coat to her . . . . to Mary. I gave this coat to Mary, didn't I? And I told her to . . . ." He struggled to hold back tears. "I told her to always keep trying . . . to never give up."

Sherlock smiled fondly. "She did just as you encouraged her to do. She overcame her circumstances and grew into a remarkable young woman." He sat carefully down beside his friend and reached out tentatively to touch the coat. "She wore this for years," he observed reverently. "And continued to keep it preserved even when she stopped using it. It must have been very special to her."

John was silent for some minutes, and the two friends sat together companionably. Finally, John said wonderingly, "She knew, I think, that last day. The coat was on the top in the foot locker, and it . . . it smells like her, Sherlock, faintly. I don't think I'm imagining it. Like the scent she always wore. A child wouldn't have had that type of scent. She must have tried it on, that last day. She was late for work. And she told me . . . ."

Sherlock waited, but John couldn't speak for a long time. Then he continued, almost in a whisper.

_"'__I've just realized that I've loved you nearly all my life,' _she told me. _ 'And that the idea of you kept me going till I met you, and helped to make me what I am.' _That was very nearly the last thing she said to me, Sherlock. I never saw her again."

The silence fell once again as they contemplated the vagaries of fate. Then Sherlock ventured to speak, gently.

"Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window, hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generations, and leading to the most outré results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable." +

John smiled then, a sad and affectionate smile. "Well, when it came to Mary, that is all most certainly true. But it comforts me to know our lives were so strangely interwoven all along. One of the things I've been regretting was that I knew her for only six years. But now I know that was not true. I can't say why, but it makes a difference. It makes things better, more bearable, somehow."

"Just wait. There are more coincidences to relate," Sherlock assured him. "I have a story to tell you about Mary. And we must have Lestrade over and let him share his story about Mary as well."

Late into the night, the three men sat by the fire in the Baker Street flat, with drinks in hand, and talked and marvelled and remembered; and they laughed and sighed and shed a few tears as they shared treasured memories. And together, they began to heal.

000

*Sherlock is quoting from Hamlet's speech to Horatio.

+Sherlock is quoting . . . Sherlock Holmes! from "A Case of Identity" by ACD.


End file.
